Topic: No, I will not fix your computer. (Read 65356 times)

Mongrel · « **Reply #160 on:** June 16, 2009, 01:39:21 PM »

Actually, one thing I've noticed is that I have to plug in my USB mic/headphones BEFORE I start Steam, or they don't work. I can't start TF2 and then plug the mic in afterwards.

Brentai · « **Reply #161 on:** June 21, 2009, 07:23:16 PM »

Well, my nVidia card is Very Definitely Dead. There seems to be a rather suspicious amount of that going around these days.

Normally I'd take this as a sign that it's finally time to initiate Operation: PCenstein, but right now the next couple thousand dollars I'm going to make are going straight into un-fucking my dental situation. So I'm left either slipping a bit out to grab a very temporary replacement (which, to be fair, can cost less than, say, a DSi) or roughing it with the onboard GPU for a couple months. Which might not be entirely bad, since I'll be able to see how a normal computer handles 4096 onscreen sprites at once...

Thad · « **Reply #162 on:** June 23, 2009, 08:56:07 PM »

I hate setting up a new PC for an existing user and waiting forever while Exchange syncs the fucking DELETED ITEMS folder.

One: users should be smart enough to empty their trash.

Two: Exchange should be set up NOT to sync the trash by default.

Superface · « **Reply #163 on:** June 29, 2009, 06:46:10 PM »

Thad: FUCK yeah. People even using Outlook at all now just pisses me off. What's wrong with fucking Gmail, is it too awesome? Too little spam? Is public/events/invitations/subscription/online/offline in Gcal just too orgasmic for you? What about the security of https? Why the fuck are you still using Outlook, stupid corporate assholes?

I fucking hate Outlook. To me that is now some of the most worthless, obsolete software on this planet.

Mongrel, I'd love for you to get a more powerful power supply, like 500W. You may not technically need it, but if you can find one (and with a nice, big 120mm fan as well), you'll notice quite a bit less ambient noise I think, and less chance of failure. Just don't buy one from Best Buy, they'll charge you $100; I had no choice but make that mistake on our work desktop 6 months ago. (A bird in the Best Buy is worth $100, but one in the Pricewatch is only $22.)

Everything else sounds awesome, except everyone could always use more RAM. I rock a Geforce 6150 myself on this laptop, along with 2GB of RAM; I'd love more, as I can't run Runes of Magic, but I'll have to wait and build a desktop because bitches don't know bout upgradeable laptop video, as well as flying cars.

EDIT: This might be the most unrelated thing evar, but I noticed something weird like that with my older MS Natural USB keyboard and FFXI for PS2. If I plug in my keyboard before starting PlayOnline, it works in the PS2 menu, but PlayOnline won't see it. If I defy logic and wait till PlayOnline has started, THEN plug in my keyboard, it works perfectly. Odd?

Kayma · « **Reply #164 on:** June 29, 2009, 06:50:42 PM »

+1 for hating Exchange. Bonus round: I have to troubleshoot it, but I can't administer it. Passing tickets for the loss.

Thad · « **Reply #165 on:** July 01, 2009, 04:55:12 PM »

...so, I've been using a Mac Mini as a media box for awhile now. My roomie has one of the Intel models but I have an old G4, and I'm reading in places that it can't handle 720p video. (I don't need 1080p as my TV is only 720p and nobody makes TV shows in 1080p anyway, but I have reached a point where I will accept nothing less than 720p if at all possible. Even stuff that really really doesn't need it like The Office just looks better in 720p.) Haven't actually gotten home to check it out for myself yet; could be that it works at a framerate that isn't TOO bad, or that QuickTime won't handle it but VLC or Core can. But if it won't handle 720p satisfactorily, I'm going to have to start looking at a new media box.

A brand new Mini is a stupid idea, because shooting their price up $100 has priced them right out of the media player market and every other conceivable market they have any utility in. Amazon's got an older Intel model for $450, which I'd consider, but if I could get it for cheaper I'd seriously consider building a new media box myself. Either one of those Shuttle jobbers, or if it would save money I might use an old case I've got lying around. It's mid tower and therefore pretty big for a media box, but it's a very nice, lightweight aluminum case. I've also got a spare video card and 5.1 sound card lying around, so I could save expenses there.

Anyway! Just thinking out loud for the moment. Might start floating actual part ideas later.

Rosencrantz · « **Reply #166 on:** July 01, 2009, 04:59:09 PM »

You may already know this, but the Apple site has a section with cheaper refurbished models. Maybe there's something worthwhile there?

Thad · « **Reply #167 on:** July 01, 2009, 08:18:16 PM »

I dropped my Mini in for Brad's. Found that VLC 0.9.8 wouldn't play 720p MKV's -- sound was fine, but no picture (or just big green box).

Decided to try upgrading both VLC and QuickTime. QuickTime upgrade required a reboot.

Quote

(09:16:57 PM) ThadXBoyd: So, I have a question about the new version of QuickTime. After you install it, is your boot screen supposed to show a non-moving gear and flicker at a seizure-inducing rate?
(09:17:54 PM) [Brad]: hmm
(09:17:56 PM) [Brad]: is it windows?
(09:18:36 PM) ThadXBoyd: No.
(09:18:52 PM) [Brad]: hmm
(09:18:59 PM) [Brad]: probably it's not supposed to do that

EDIT: Swapped Brad's Mini back in.

Quote

(09:23:48 PM) ThadXBoyd: ...huh. Well, the good news is it isn't actually my Mini. The bad news is it appears to be my TV. Somehow.

Kayma · « **Reply #168 on:** July 01, 2009, 08:47:03 PM »

I enjoy that he asked if it was Windows.

Thad · « **Reply #169 on:** July 01, 2009, 09:16:58 PM »

By way of explanation: this, or something like it, used to happen frequently when I first got my TV. I had a DVR box from Cox (I believe I have previously expounded at some length about what an incredible POS it was), and sometimes it would just cause my TV to lock up. Picture would go blank, it wouldn't respond to the remote, and eventually I'd have to unplug it and plug it back in. Seems to have been a crash resulting from corrupt data the box was sending through the HDMI cable (as it would happen again at the same spot in the video if I tried to replay it). A firmware update to the TV later fixed it and this is the first time I've seen it since. It's also the first time I've seen it show a fixed picture with a godawful flicker instead of just going black. (EDIT 2 for clarification: when I say "fixed picture" -- it only appeared when the TV was receiving a signal from the HDMI cable; when I powered the Mini off it disappeared -- obviously if it had stayed on I would have figured out immediately that it was the TV and not the Mini. As it was, the image coming back up when I plugged the OTHER Mini in was the tipoff.)

Anyway! Now that I got it up and running, it's looking very probable that 720p does not work on a G4. It's interesting seeing the way each player deals with it -- QuickTime just sputters, VLC shows garbage, and MPlayer OSX Extended, on its default settings, renders every frame correctly but at a piss-poor framerate so that the video goes much slower than the audio. (When I have more time I'll see if I can tweak frame skip settings to something tolerable, but I'm guessing probably not.)

So, I may have to buy a new media center instead of a new monitor. We'll see.

EDIT: Oh good, they still make *buntu LiveCD's for PPC. Going to try Xubuntu since that's the lowest overhead.

Thad · « **Reply #170 on:** July 03, 2009, 04:21:02 PM »

...yeah, pretty much going to have to accept that 720p on a G4 isn't going to happen. About the only thing left I haven't tried is overclocking the sucker, which apparently entails ripping off tiny resistors that are soldered directly onto the processor and which will only crank it up to 1.67GHz, which sources say is still not good enough to play 720p video.

So, I can check whether the P4 Dell I've got lying around is up to the task, and if push comes to shove there's really no reason I can't just put my desk next to my TV when I move into my new place and just hook the damn Mac Pro up to the TV.

Thad · « **Reply #171 on:** July 05, 2009, 03:14:53 PM »

The P4 2.4 I've got lying around doesn't seem to want to do 720p either (though I haven't tried installing Win7 on it yet, as it doesn't have a DVD-ROM drive and I can't find the AC adapter for my external one and haven't bothered removing one from another old PC yet). Media Player Classic Home Cinema shows some promise, and renders ALMOST at speed; from what I read, it should be able to do it properly if I plunk a Radeon HD or GeForce 7xxx+ into it (it uses DXVA to offload some of the processing to the GPU).

Trouble is, the only AGP card I've got around is a GeForce 6800. A cheap Radeon HD is only around $45, but that'd be a stopgap as I don't want to use this machine as a media box in the long term. So that leaves me the question of whether I'd want to spend $45 on a card I know I'd get rid of later, or save up until I can buy or build a new machine. (I have the GeForce that came with my Mac Pro sitting here -- it is very dusty and I really should blow it off and put it in a sleeve or something -- but I can't see a number on it other than p345. I think it's a 7600. And it's a PCIE card and therefore won't help me with this box.)

Thad · « **Reply #172 on:** July 06, 2009, 04:46:20 PM »

Got my hands on a nice, lightweight Dell Dimension B110 with a Celeron D 2.53. Was disappointed to discover that "D" is just some bullshit letter and doesn't mean "dual" (as I had assumed it did based on the fact that Pentium D's ARE dual). Was intrigued to find that you can overclock the sucker by 800MHz by bending a pin (haven't gotten it working yet, but I got it for free so I'm okay with destroying the processor if I fuck it up).

Thad · « **Reply #173 on:** July 06, 2009, 10:09:08 PM »

Brad wants a new Mini and has offered to sell me his old one (which is an old one, but which he's upgraded considerably -- DVD burner, RAM upgrade -- and has offered to upgrade further with a 250GB hard drive) for a very reasonable rate. (And he's also noted that I can probably sell my also-upgraded G4 for a decent price.) So I'll probably do that. But I'm still going to mess around with that Dimension.

Thad · « **Reply #174 on:** July 07, 2009, 09:52:00 PM »

Crossposted from InsanelyMac forums:

The situation is: my roomie and I've been using his 1.66 Core 2 Mac Mini as a media center for the past year and a half or so. He's moving out of town, and he's offered to sell me the Mini for $350. He's upgraded it to 2GB RAM and a SuperDrive, and is planning on putting a 250GB hard drive in there too, so that's a pretty good deal.

But I'm caught in the age-old "power versus size" conundrum -- if I wanted to go mid tower, I know I could get a more powerful and more expandable system for the money.

So, here's what I've already got lying around the house:

Lian-Li PC-62 aluminum case
GeForce 7300GT (PCIE) (came with my desktop, a Mac Pro)
5.1 speakers (analog, mini-stereo)
DVD-ROM drives (an old IDE one and an external USB burner)
Bluetooth keyboard and mouse
ATI Remote Wonder
DVI-to-HDMI cable
HDTV with HDMI input

Here are some things I'm looking at (all on NewEgg):

Power supply: Corsair CMPSU-650TX ($80 w/ rebate)
MB: Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L ($80)
HD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200AAJS ($50)
Processor: Core 2 Duo E7400 ($120)
RAM: 4GB Corsair ($45)
Bluetooth adapter: D-Link DBT-120 ($22)

Some considerations:

* I'm trying to stay in the $300-$400 range.
* Mainly a media box -- meaning I want it to be relatively quiet (doesn't have to be whisper-quiet or anything) and play 720p video. Everything else after that is gravy.
* Not that concerned about HD space -- I can store my movies on my Mac Pro, and can always add more drives.
* To that end, I want something expandable -- wouldn't mind triple-booting Windows 7 and Mythbuntu at some point. (Or adding a Blu-Ray drive, though I understand OSX won't play Blu-Ray movies yet.)

Thoughts, suggestions, concerns, things I've missed? Does this look like a decent budget media center? Should I make some tweaks? Should I just forget the whole thing and buy that Mini instead?

Thanks!

Niku · « **Reply #175 on:** July 07, 2009, 10:23:49 PM »

~~thad break~~ TH-TH-TH-TH-THAD BREAKER!!!!!

Thad · « **Reply #176 on:** July 07, 2009, 11:04:29 PM »

...I think that's probably my most consecutive posts since the Old Doctor Who thread.

Mongrel · « **Reply #177 on:** July 20, 2009, 04:31:09 PM »

Amusing anecdote: Today I finally got around to buying a spare hard drive + enclosure on the cheap to serve as a physically isolated backup/reserve storage (been meaning to for over two years).

Anyway, I drove there on the motorbike. The box for the enclosure took up what little space was left in my top case and I was hardly about to let the hard drive rattle around motorbike luggae anyway, so I was briefly stumped as to a where I could safely store it.

I tried my coat pockets, but they were too small. That's when I realized: my shirt pocket would fit the drive.

So I was wandering around at the shops for the next two hours in my office clothes and my usual giant glasses... with a hard drive in what looked like a pocket protector. I think I was the avatar of the hypernerd for a little while this afternoon.

Mongrel · « **Reply #178 on:** July 20, 2009, 06:12:07 PM »

Good Gravy... could the Windows XP process for just doing a simple new hard drive format be any more arcane or difficult to find?

There is no way in hell I would have ever figured that one out on my own.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #179 on:** July 20, 2009, 06:21:14 PM »

Right-Click > Format is arcane and hard to find?

News:

Author Topic: No, I will not fix your computer. (Read 65356 times)